<p><b>''<i>The Schoolhouse</i> is taut, gripping and intensely moving right until the very last page. I truly couldn''t put Sophie Ward''s beautifully written novel down'' Susannah Wise, author of <i>This Fragile Earth</i></b><br><br>Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, working at a nearby library. She feels safe if she keeps to her routines and doesn''t let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher are all it takes for her ordinary, careful armour to become overwhelmed and the trauma of what happened when she was a pupil at The Schoolhouse to return.<br><br>The Schoolhouse was different - one of the 1970s experimental schools that were a reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and violence, adventure and fear. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened, but the truth is coming for her and everything sh